October 16, 2013

Samsung's Application Processor Business to Suffer Decrease in Market Share while Apple's AP Business Remains Strong

A new Korean report out today states that Samsung Electronics lost more share in mobile application processors (AP) market in the second and third quarters of this year. At the same time, Apple's AP business remains strong.

The report notes that US market research firm Strategy Analytics stated on Monday that Samsung's AP market share is estimated to have retreated continuously. It was down 2.6 percentage points from 9.4 percent in Q1 to 6.8 percent in Q2, and another 1.5 percentage points to 5.3 percent in Q3. This is the lowest level since 2008, when Samsung posted a 3.7 percent market share in Q1 of the year.

Consequently, the forecast is prevailing that Samsung Electronics' share would fall below 10% this year, as the company's market share hovered between 5% and 9% in the first three quarters of this year. This indicates that Samsung may have lost ground in the AP market as the number of adopters of Samsung's Exynos AP has decreased.

While the Korean report only focused on Samsung's position, the actual analysis by Strategic Analytics, as reported on by DigiTimes yesterday, states that "Qualcomm, Apple, MediaTek, Samsung Electronics and Spreadtrum Communications captured the top-five revenue share spots in the smartphone processor market in the second quarter. Qualcomm maintained its dominance in the smartphone applications processor market with 53% revenue share followed by Apple with a 15% shareand MediaTek with an 11% share in the quarter.

Strategic Analytics further noted that "In the tablet applications processor market, Apple continued its lead with a 34% revenue share in the second quarter of 2013, followed by Samsung and MediaTek - each with close to 10% revenue share.

About Comments: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit comments.